


I'll Defy Everyone And Love You Still

by AndreaLyn



Series: The Last to Know [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 03:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18438449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Alex is proud to say how great he and Michael are at this whole 'being friends' thing, but what might have escaped his notice is that most friends don't have the kind of relationship that he and Michael do.(But, if he paid attention, he'd notice that most boyfriends do)





	I'll Defy Everyone And Love You Still

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _Graveyard Near The House_ by Airborne Toxic Event. As always, I am over at [tumblr](http://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/) where RNM has devoured my feed.
> 
> I am 100% aware that the next episode is going to trash all of this, but for a little while, I will pretend this can be somehow in-universe and once the episode(s) air, let's call this an AU and we'll move on from there.

Once the fourth alien crisis dies down and Roswell goes back to being a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, Alex gets to focus on his personal life again. For the first little while, it’s the kind of awkward that he isn’t sure how to deal with. Things between him and Maria are still strained, not because they’re mad at each other, but they’re not sure how comfortable they both are, having slept with the same man and the feelings that might be developing. 

Liz is in the giddy throes of new love and is distracted with trying to find new work, and while Alex and Kyle get along, it’s a little awkward when you take out all the alien hunting from their interactions because there’s still a lot to get over. 

It’s the perfect storm for Alex to put his money where his mouth is and see if he and Michael can be friends. He broaches the topic when he’s at the junkyard to get his oil changed, trying not to look at the trailer and remember all the things they did _inside_ of it. 

“You want to hang out sometime?” Alex asks, trying not to feel like a kid who’s trying to make a friend for the first time.

Michael eases back from where he’s working on the engine, a dubious look on his face. “Hang out? What kind of hanging out are we talking about, because I remember a really pretty speech you gave me about wanting to start over and I don’t know if you noticed, but I wasn’t exactly really smooth the first time around. Not to mention, I’m not exactly overburdened with friends, which means I don’t really know what to do with hanging out.”

As hard as it is to admit to it, this is perfect evidence why they _need_ to do more than just fuck, because sometimes Alex feels so bad for Michael’s situation that he swears it’s some sad alien Oliver Twist come to life. 

“I want to hang out, I want to be friends,” Alex insists. That’s what he’d said, that’s what he’s sticking to. He hadn’t meant only friends, but they could both use that, admittedly. 

Michael Guerin needs a friend right now way more than he needs another drunken tumble in the trailer, even though he knows they could have one right now if he asked and they’d even be sober for it.

“Sure,” Michael says, even if he still looks suspicious. “Actually,” he admits, “I’ve got something in mind.”

That’s how Alex ends up in a sport coat and a pair of shined shoes, standing in the newly opened art gallery in downtown Roswell while Michael gets them free wine. He doesn’t really think Michael returning with the bottle in hand is what the gallery had in mind.

“I really thought we’d go see a movie or have lunch or something,” Alex voices his confusion aloud about what he’s doing here.

Michael lifts the bottle of wine, like he’s admitting that they’re going to need it. “Isobel makes me go to all her events and usually I want to start a fight within ten minutes, which means I need a chaperone.”

“So, I’m here to keep you out of trouble?”

“Usually, it’s Max, but he’s working on a case,” Michael supplies, pouring Alex a glass of wine. “Cheers, to being friends. This is what they do, right?”

Alex shrugs, but he makes a face when he realizes that Michael’s not wrong. Friends are supposed to help out one another. Besides, it’s not like it’s the worst place to be, he discovers as the night goes on. They have to put up with Roswell’s more pretentious crowd, but Michael finds them a quiet corner and the bottle of wine is managing to last a while. 

Isobel comes around just once to glare at them for sitting on the floor in one of the quieter corners of the gallery, but Michael settles that quickly enough. “So, you want me out there, talking to your guests, making trouble…?”

“Fine,” she replies heatedly. “Stay here, and don’t break anything.”

Michael salutes her with the wine bottle and after that, no one bothers them.

“I always figured you’d like art,” Michael admits, when they’re starting to get to the bottom of the bottle and Alex is thinking about stealing another one. 

Maybe it’s the booze, but he can’t connect how Michael would think that. “What? Why?”

“I think the nail polish,” he admits. “When you were in high school, I watched the way you painted them in class sometimes, in physics. It drove me crazy,” he huffs. “Not just because I could barely stand staring at your fingers for so long without having about a dozen fantasies, but it drove me nuts that we were learning all this incredible stuff and instead of listening to it, you painted your nails. After that, I figured with the music, art just fell into place.”

It probably would have made him more interesting. “I wouldn’t mind going to see some famous pieces in a museum, but I never wanted to be an artist.” Though, that’s a lie. “Except for once. When I still wanted to be a musician, I used to think about making my own album covers, with splotches of nail polish.” He shakes his head. “I wanted to be so punk.”

“You mispronounced emo,” Michael informs him.

“My brothers definitely got tired of driving me to Hot Topic,” Alex can confirm. “For a while, I really thought I was going to do it. I thought I’d leave my dad behind, drive to California, and get out of here.” Alex doesn’t mention the part where he’d considered asking Michael to go with him, because the past is the past and they can’t change that. 

Michael smiles at Alex, this dopey and stupid thing that makes Alex feel like butterflies have invaded his stomach. 

“What?” Alex asks, feeling a little flush and unsure. 

“You have such a great singing voice. I know if you’d gone, your Dad would’ve never been able to get you back because you’d be famous by now. I used to…” Michael ducks his head down, stretches out the fingers of his bad hand, and it actually looks like he might be blushing. “I used to fall asleep in my truck thinking about that song you used to sing, during music. What’d you call it?”

Alex lets out a pained sound. “My Heart Is A Galaxy,” he remembers, but now in hindsight, he realizes how much that must have meant to Michael. “You always made me play that during free request hour,” he accuses.

“It made me feel like we were connected,” Michael admits, “like without you even realizing it, you could see a part of me that no one else could.” He shakes his head and laughs. “When I went star-gazing at Foster Ranch, I’d be humming it under my breath, because, what was that line?” 

Alex holds his breath, because there’s no way he’s going to remember, there’s no way.

“The stars could collide, the galaxies could burst, but here in my heart, you’ll be there, you’ll be there, my love, my light, my first.” Michael recites, closing his eyes like he has to really pull them out of the depths. He doesn’t sing them, just recites them, and it hits Alex that Michael has felt more about him these last ten years than he really ever knew.

Maybe they should have been talking like this from the start. 

“It was a stupid song, don’t you remember the bridge that went on for a whole minute?”

“I could’ve listened to you play it for days. It really quieted my head, all that chaos…” He catches Alex’s gaze, smiling fondly. While Alex struggles for a response, Michael doesn’t seem to notice. He’s on his feet, brushing his palms off on his pants, gesturing for Alex to join him. “Come on, let’s go see these paintings. It’ll be nice to look at things I can’t afford and hey, maybe you’ll develop a taste for art.”

Alex downs the rest of his wine, feeling like he’s definitely going to need it. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and when Michael presses his palm lightly to the small of his back to guide him into the gallery, it feels like his whole body alights with the warmth, focused on one specific part of his body where he feels more alive than ever, all because Michael’s touching him there.

* * *

“Hey,” Michael starts, when he calls Alex two weeks later for one of their daily chats. “I need a favor and this one’s family related, too.”

Since the art gallery, he and Michael have done a bunch of normal friend things. They’ve gone to the Crashdown with a few of the others for lunch, Michael had come over to help move a couch, and they’ve been keeping a running text conversation going. Alex is actually really proud of them because they’re normal friend things that normal people do with each other, but now he’s starting to worry about whatever this favor might be. Usually, Michael doesn’t lead in with a warning when he’s got a request.

“What?” he asks warily.

The art gallery hadn’t turned out so badly. Maybe this won’t either?

“I need you to come to Max’s birthday party with me at the station. I got suckered into it last drunk and disorderly because I said that if I got locked up again, I’d do anything he wanted. Apparently that means funtimes with Sheriff Valenti, Cameron, and the rest of them. I’m going to need some backup.”

It sounds fairly harmless. It’s probably a few hours, he’ll get a beer and some cake. 

“Yeah, I’m in.”

It’s what friends do, right? 

When he arrives at the station, he realizes how awkward this whole thing is and why Michael had asked him to go along with. “Does everyone here hate you?” Alex mutters on his way in, when at least two of the cops give Michael the stink-eye and Michael just cocks a set of finger-guns right back at them. 

“They’re not my biggest fans,” he admits, dragging a chair around to sit backwards at a table, grabbing a couple of beers for him and Alex. 

It’s your typical office birthday scene, but it leaves Alex feeling like an outsider via Michael, like somehow that awkwardness has bled into him, but maybe it’s for the best that they’re both here. This is just too much for one person to bear, but with Alex, they can do it together. That said, if anyone starts singing off-key birthday songs, he’s bolting. 

“Wait,” Alex says, watching the whole department shoot confetti over Max when something occurs to him. “If it’s Max’s birthday, why isn’t Isobel celebrating too?” They’re the Evans’ _twins_ and he really can’t see a world where Isobel lets Max do something without her. 

“We’re not allowed to celebrate Isobel’s birthday in public anymore since she turned twenty-five,” he says, sipping his beer.

Which, makes a lot of sense, because he knows that even he’s been feeling a bit strange as he approaches thirty, like he was supposed to have so many things in his life figured out and he doesn’t. He gets why someone wouldn’t want to have a party to celebrate the fact that time won’t stop for you, even if you need it to.

Belatedly, Alex stares at Michael and realizes why Max had asked him to be here, why Michael looks so bitter as he drinks in the corner of someone else’s party. “It’s your birthday too.”

“Yup,” he agrees, sharply. He’s avoiding Alex’s gaze, staring at the table.

“But you can’t say that or celebrate it, because then it’d raise red flags about the three of you.” Michael doesn’t reply, his gaze steadily fixed on Max as he accepts gifts from his coworkers. “How long has it been like that?”

“Always,” Michael says with a shrug, staring into his beer bottle, like he’s ramping up to brush it off, like it isn’t a big deal. 

It’s a shame that Alex doesn’t plan to let him. 

“Max,” he says smoothly, on his feet and across the room. “Hey, happy birthday man. I’m gonna get out of here and I was thinking I’d take Michael with me. He promised to take a look at my car,” he says, and just in case Max is feeling like keeping him here, he keeps going, “and I’m not sure he’s feeling so good. I thought maybe I could get him something a little stronger to drink? You know?”

Max glances over Alex’s shoulder to where Michael is broodily picking the label off his beer, clapping Alex on the shoulder. “Tell him that we’ll do something later, just the three of us,” he says, but in Alex’s opinion, Max should have led with that instead of forcing Michael to a party at the station with none of his friends and a whole barrel of awkwardness.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, but means, ‘sure maybe’.

He returns to the desk where Michael’s sitting long enough to hook an arm under his elbow, dragging him up so swiftly that he sputters some of the beer, giving Alex an accusatory look. “Hey, what’s the…?”

“You’re not feeling so great, right?” he says, very loudly and very dramatically (he knew that all that time preparing for Tree Number Three in their elementary school play would pay off eventually). Michael squints at him like he’s trying to figure out if Alex is having a stroke, but finally, he catches on.

True, Alex literally has to wink at him to get him to understand, but he gets there.

“Definitely not feeling so hot,” he agrees, pressing a hand to his head. “All that criminal behavior…”

Alex smacks his shoulder because he’s not surprised, but seriously? The last thing he wants to do is bail Michael out of jail on his birthday. Once they’ve made their escape, Michael lingers at the side of Alex’s truck, letting his eyes roam over his body in that slow, considering way that makes Alex’s skin prickle and his temperature raise at least two degrees.

“So, all that play-acting, what was that for?”

“It’s your birthday too and you deserve to celebrate just as much. I’m taking you somewhere.”

Where is an excellent question. It takes a while for Alex to figure out where to take him, because a last minute birthday celebration is hard when you hadn’t been planning anything. Luckily, he did have Michael’s gift in his car and he has an idea. “Do you trust me?” Alex asks, standing outside the driver’s side of the car, leaning over and looking at Michael hopefully. 

“You? Yeah, man, always,” Michael laughs. “If you take that as an opening to murder me, I’m gonna be upset.”

Alex drives them out of town and the minute they stop seeing lights, he knows Michael is going to start bitching and bringing up secret murder bases again, so Alex preemptively shuts it down. 

“Not much farther,” he insists, and turns his high beams on when they round the corner to Foster Ranch, where the site has been cleared, but no building activity has started. Tonight, the sky is clear and expansive, and without anyone on the Ranch shining their lights, it’s brighter than ever. From the quick glance he takes of Michael beside him, he’s made the right call.

Score one for paying attention during their daily friend calls.

“This is where the crash happened,” Alex says, not so much a question but sharing that he knows. “Isn’t it? That’s why you’re so attached?”

“I used to come here all the time,” Michael admits, as Alex unpacks supplies from his backseat, hauling out thick blankets, water, food, and his backpack, which has Michael’s gift in it. “I thought maybe this was some kind of gateway between our planet and here, that maybe my parents would pick me up, that someone would come back for me, but if we landed in 1947, that was a lot of hope for someone who doesn’t like feeling that.”

“You brought us here once in high school,” Alex feels compelled to remind him. “The toolshed wasn’t safe, so I texted you to stay away. You decided that meant I wasn’t safe, so we drove around town drinking milkshakes and then we came here. I wanted to kiss you so badly that night.”

He’s forced to look away as he sets up the blanket, or he’ll have to admit that he wants to kiss Michael just as badly right now. It wouldn’t be very friendly to do that, so he settles on the blanket and pats the space beside him. 

“Sit,” he says. “I got you something.”

“Seriously? You really didn’t need to. Every year, I treat myself to a drink and a night off from working and that’s present enough,” he says, his gaze already slipping up towards the stars above, like he just can’t help himself. 

“Happy birthday, Michael,” Alex says, and leans back to his backpack for his gift -- the piece to Michael’s ship, at least one of them. He doesn’t know if it’s the final piece, but he knows that it’s important for him to give this up. Without Michael even knowing it, Alex is holding him back and he can’t be that guy. He has to be better than this.

Unwrapping it, he holds it out to Michael tentatively.

“Where did you get this?” Michael asks, a hush in his voice as he takes it. 

“Jim Valenti had it in his cabin, I don’t know what he was planning on doing with it, but, it’s yours. It belongs to you and your family. I want you to have it.” He’s flinching, like he’s ready for Michael to tell him that he’s going to leave earth with it, but nothing comes.

He takes hold of it like it’s precious cargo, holding it tight to his chest.

He doesn’t talk about the ship. He doesn’t talk about his plans. Instead, he lies back down on the blanket and wraps his arms around the piece from the ship, staring at the stars. 

They stay there like that for hours and Alex catches himself glancing over, stopping himself when his mind drifts to thoughts about how he wishes that Michael were holding him like that, how he wishes he could slide in and tuck himself under Michael’s chin just perfectly. Instead, he settles for being jealous of some alien tech and reminds himself that friends don’t cuddle under the stars.

When Alex slides closer for warmth and Michael tugs the blanket over them, Alex tells himself that it’s just cold in the desert at night. There’s nothing more to it. The fact that they stay tangled up like for two hours watching falling stars doesn’t even factor into Alex’s mind as anything to worry about. 

He’s just happy that Michael is happy, because he deserves a good birthday, after all the bad.

* * *

Alex spends at least an hour hesitating and rationalizing before he makes the phone call. In the end, he decides that he’s been there for Michael enough that it’s his turn to ask for something _big_. “You free next Saturday?”

From the sound of sheets, Alex has woken Michael up. He tries very hard not to worry about someone in bed with Michael, at the same time as he tries to calm himself down from thinking about how naked Michael might be on the other end of the line. These are all dangerous roads of thought that he needs to stay off of. 

“Seeing as most of my plans are either working or bugging Max and Isobel, you already know the answer’s yes,” he replies. “Why?”

“I need to call in a friend favor,” Alex says, telling himself that Michael won’t say no, not after Alex has been there for him so often. They’ve managed to take on the little things with ease. Now it’s time for some of the bigger ones. “Some of my brothers are in town and they decided they want to do a lunch with the family. I don’t want to do this alone.”

The hush on the line is nerve wracking and Alex nearly babbles that it’s too much, too soon. At least, until Michael speaks and Alex understands his hesitation. 

“Your Dad won’t be there, will he?”

“No,” Alex hurries to insist. “Michael, I would never ask if he were, but I could use someone with me in case my brothers bring him up.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “Yeah,” Michael finally says. “Yeah, I’ll come with you.”

What Alex doesn’t say and doesn’t think too long about is the fact that his brothers will bring their wives or girlfriends and while most of them know about his long-standing crush on Michael Guerin, they also know that things are complicated, care of their dear old Dad and the issues he’d beat into Alex when he was younger. They mostly just want to keep their noses out of his business, but Alex intends to shove them right into it.

Michael shows up at Alex’s cabin wearing the nicest shirt Alex has ever seen him in, a pair of black slacks, and with his hair combed and tamed. Honestly, Alex barely recognizes him.

“It’s just lunch,” Alex guarantees, because he’s in an old t-shirt and pair of jeans. He’d stopped dressing up for his brothers around the time he figured out that they really didn’t care. “Did you iron?”

Michael runs his hand through his hair, which messes up some of the work he put into it, and his nerves are clear. “Yeah, well, I’ve met them one on one before, but never all at the same time,” he protests. “It’s a big deal and I don’t…” He grimaces, looking away as he gestures out, like somehow that helps. “I don’t know, I don’t know how families work, Manes.”

“You look great,” Alex promises. “Besides, they all know you from high school, from … before,” he finishes awkwardly, because none of his brothers know what their father did to Michael’s hand, but all of them know about how Jesse Manes hated his son’s sexual orientation. “It’s lunch, right? My oldest brother’s wife will cook, their kid will be annoying, and my other brother is going to talk about his last tour way too much, and my other-other brother will probably bail.”

“He’s the smart one, huh?”

“Sources say,” Alex agrees, squeezing Michael’s hand to try and convince him to stop worrying. 

He’s no alien and he hasn’t got any superpowers, but he can feel Michael vibrating with tension the whole drive there, even though he really has nothing to worry about. When they get there, his oldest brother Brett and his wife Amy pull Michael into the kitchen to ask him questions about what he’s been up to since high school while Liam corners Alex.

“You brought the boyfriend? Is it because Dad’s on assignment?”

“He’s my friend,” Alex clarifies. “And I wouldn’t have forced him to endure Dad,” he finishes. “Look, you guys bring your girlfriends, Brett’s got Amy, I just wanted to bring a friend. Is that so bad?”

Liam looks at him like he’s going to poke at it some more, but he drops it. “So I got an email from the team the other day asking about my next tour…”

Maybe Alex should have let him prod about Michael, that would have been better than another endless retelling of the valor of bravery or whatever Liam wants to talk about this time. He endures this for five more minutes before he decides to go rescue Michael, excusing himself from Liam to find Michael in the kitchen with Amy, the both of them laughing over a pot of boiling water. 

“What are you two doing?”

“Alex,” Amy laughs warmly, “Michael was just showing me some of the tricks he’s picked up. You should taste what he can do with a devilled egg,” she whispers, gesturing to the ones he’s been tweaking on the table.

“You cook?” Alex asks him with surprise. 

Michael shrugs, like he doesn’t want to boast about it. “I mean, enough to survive, but I’m more interested in cooking where it crosses the line into chemistry. Baking’s really my sweet spot, I can make a batch of cookies or bread that’ll have you drooling,” he says, popping one of the devilled eggs into his mouth. “Amy did all the hard work,” he says, barely having swallowed. “I just mixed some spices together.”

“They’re delicious, Alex,” Amy insists. “Where have you been hiding him? I’ve heard stories about Michael Guerin for ten years, but it takes this long to meet him?”

That’s a story that no one has the time or emotional energy for, so Alex plasters on his very best fake family smile and says, “I was kind of busy overseas, you know, giving part of my leg for our country,” he adds sarcastically. “Next time, I’ll remember to fill you in on the gossip when I get back.”

As usual, it shuts her up and Amy bustles out, looking a little flushed.

“I take it they’re not used to the Alex Manes sarcasm special?” Michael quips, sipping his beer. “If I didn’t know you, that was almost mean.”

“They haven’t exactly always been kind to me,” is all Alex plans to say on the matter, because Michael already knows about the complicated relationship that he has with his brothers, who all happen to be fruit that didn’t fall too far from Dad’s apple tree.

He reaches for Michael’s beer, stealing it from him so he can take a long sip, ignoring Michael’s protest before he hands it back. 

“Okay,” he says, sufficiently steeled. “Let’s do this.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Michael replies in a deadpan, but through the whole lunch, Alex notices that he leads conversation topics by keeping people talking about some new scientific discoveries, the upcoming space launch, and if conversation ever lulls, he chats loudly with Amy about food recipes. 

Any moment that his brothers might co-opt to ask about what his plans are, what Michael is doing here, or anything else that might broach his personal life is cut off by Michael being an annoying asshole who talks too much. Alex feels his heart swell in his chest when he cuts off Brett who’s asking when Jesse will be back in town. 

“You guys planning on hitting up the UFO Emporium now that it’s reopened? It’s out of this world.”

No one gets a word in edgewise unless Michael allows it and Alex decides that he’s coming to every single family lunch from here on out, if this is the kind of result he gets.

His brothers look pissed as hell at him when he leaves, but Alex is feeling great. “See you guys next time you force us to have together time,” he says, glad that Michael’s already out the door and in the car, because he’s not sure they need to add fuel to the fire with whatever insult he would’ve come up with.

The Manes brothers look annoyed enough as it is. 

When Alex drops Michael off at the trailer, he doesn’t get out immediately. Alex isn’t sure whether he’s about to be invited in and his heart pounds wildly in his chest, not because he’s thinking of reasons to turn him down, but because he wants to say yes and stay. Lunch had gone over so well and it’s all thanks to Michael, making him Alex’s new favorite person in the world.

“If you’re free tomorrow, maybe come around,” Michael offers. “I make my batches of bread for the week, I can show you where the magic happens, maybe send you home with something?”

For him, he’d do anything. 

“Yeah,” Alex breathes out, forgetting that he’d even thought about saying no. “What uh, what time?”

“How about you come for dinner and I’ll see what else I can manage.”

 _It’s a date_ sounds wrong, because it’s not. 

“I’ll be there,” Alex promises, already thinking about what wine to bring and what to wear. It’s not a date, though. It’s really not. Friends do this all the time. As far as he knows, that’s the truth, because it’s not like he’s had healthy experiences lately to say otherwise.

* * *

It’s the end of the long night drinking at the Wild Pony when Alex takes advantage of the easy feeling he has with so many beers in him to ask another favor, this one much more personal and one he’s been scared of doing for ages. 

“Will you come with me somewhere?”

“I’d go with you anywhere,” Michael promises, sounding as sloppy drunk as Alex feels. He’d insisted on walking Alex outside and is waiting until a cab shows up. He doesn’t say what he plans to do, but Alex suspects Maria will be shoving Michael awake with a broom later on tonight. “Where do you want me to go?”

“The doctor,” Alex says. “I’ve been putting off my checkup with the army doc for my leg…”

“That sounds like the kind of thing you take Kyle or Liz to,” Michael replies, looking like Alex slapped him in the face instead of asking him to go with him. 

Maybe it’s a fair point, but when he’s feeling tipsy like this, the only person he wants at his side is Michael. He’s not sure he knows the words to use, but the last few months have felt so comfortable and he understands that they didn’t just connect all those years ago, it’s been so easy to do it again, like they’ve always been puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.

“Kyle would just get all overprotective doctor and Liz would mother,” Alex dismisses. “I want you there. Please?”

“Anywhere you want me, I’m there.” 

Alex wakes up the next morning and checks his phone to find a message from Michael confirming the appointment time. He waits for a wave of regret, but it never comes. Instead, he feels overwhelming relief knowing that he’ll have someone with him that’s never once flinched or looked at him differently because of his leg. 

There’s a small part of him that knows that he wants Michael there because he just wants to be around Michael, who’s quickly becoming one of his best friends. If he thinks about it, he might already be a better friend than he is with Liz or Maria, because he’s shared things with Michael that he hasn’t shared with anyone else.

He wants Michael with him -- simple as that. 

He’s finished getting ready and grabbing the crutches when he hears two sharp honks from the cabin’s driveway. Alex heads to the porch, frowning when he sees Michael getting out of the truck. “I thought we were going to meet at the appointment.”

“What if you had any issues with the prosthetic? Nah,” Michael dismisses. “Better that I drive you there. Hop in,” he encourages, patting the passenger side. “So, how long have you been putting this off?”

“It’s just a routine check-up,” Alex replies heatedly, not wanting to admit that Michael’s right, that he knows him this well (when did he get to know Alex this well? They’ve been doing this friend thing for months, but it’s like he knows him inside and out). 

Michael levels one look on him and Alex folds.

“Either they tell me that everything is fine and there was no point in me wasting the time or they tell me something’s wrong and…” 

It’s why he wants Michael there with him. He doesn’t want to think about permanent muscle degradation or complications. In fact, Alex is so fixated on his tunnel vision of the appointment that he doesn’t pay attention to how Michael hovers extremely close to him, how he doesn’t say anything, and how he even keeps his head down, right up until they’re in the private room of the doctor. 

They give Alex a hospital gown and there’s an awkward moment when Alex looks at Michael when the nurse leaves. “Uh…”

“I can go if…”

“I mean, you’ve seen it all before,” he says, stripping off his shirt like that’s made his decision for him. Michael leans over to take the discarded items of clothing, folding them carefully in a small pile on his lap, leaning over to tie the strings of Alex’s gown as he murmurs a ‘thank you’. The light of the room reflects off the prosthesis like this and makes Alex feel so much less than human, but he doesn’t want to take it off until the doctor says so. 

Ten minutes later, Dr. Clarke comes in, with a wary look at Michael, turning a curious look to Alex. “Is he…?”

“He’s with me,” is all Alex says curtly, not wanting to get into details. He knows this will get back around to Jesse Manes, but for the life of him, he really doesn’t care. 

He’s already done the tests and had all the scans run, it’s just the appointment that he’s been putting off. While Dr. Clarke gets the scans out to show Alex, he reaches for Michael’s hand, because he needs that lifeline and support. Those few minutes while Dr. Clarke studies them feel like they drag on forever, but Michael keeps rubbing his thumb in circles against Alex’s palm and it settles him from freaking out. 

Finally, the man speaks. 

“I’ve got good news for you,” the doctor says, after he takes a look at his scans. Michael squeezes Alex’s hand, like he’s more excited to hear this than Alex is. “There are no complications, but we’ve also got a new prosthetic model that ought to reduce some of the pain around the attachment. We’ve been looking for some people to test it out. You want in?”

Alex looks over to see that Michael is practically ready to accept for him, so he laughs and decides he’d better say something first. “Yeah, doc, that sounds amazing.” He’d been building all of this up in his head, imagining the worst case scenarios. 

It hits him, then, that maybe it’s not the only place he does that. Maybe he does that in other parts of his life and cuts things off before they can reach that point. Still, it’s not like he’s completely ruined it, because Michael is here. 

“Now,” Dr. Clarke says, and takes some pamphlets out. When he leans forward to explain the care of the prosthetic, he’s explaining it to both Alex and Michael, and Alex thinks that it makes sense for someone other than himself to understand how it works. 

Michael should know how it goes on and comes off, how to maintain it, and he can already see that engineering brain of his ticking and taking notes on how to improve it. It seems only normal for him to hear about all the care. 

“I’ll see you in a few weeks for a check. Alex,” he says. “Alex’s friend,” he quips, giving him a smirk as he exits. 

Once the door shuts, Michael’s on his feet, offering clothes back to Alex as he changes. “This is great,” he says excitedly. “I mean, I was gonna offer to build you one if the military didn’t get off their asses and do something for you, but now they’re actually gonna be helpful for once?” As Alex slides back into his jeans, Michael hovers nearby, like he’s bursting with a nervous energy. “You’re happy, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex laughs, reaching out to steady Michael with one hand. “I am.”

He doesn’t tell him to calm down, but it feels like he should. Michael’s being really weird and Alex can’t figure out why. Once he’s fully dressed, he lets Michael help him to his feet so they can leave. 

It’s only on the way out of the hospital that Alex notices _how_ jumpy Michael is acting. He’s not sure why, because the appointment had gone well, but it clicks as soon as he sees how Michael watches every passing doctor with paranoia, tenses at every announcement. “You don’t ever go to the hospital,” Alex says, the severity of what Michael is doing hitting him. “But you’re here.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, sounding as tense as he looks from the way his voice has gone taut. “You asked me.”

“So you willingly are facing your fear of the hospital and what it means to be here for me.”

They’re in the lobby, facing each other, and while there’s three feet between them, Alex feels like there’s a spell around them and he doesn’t notice that anyone else is coming or going around them. Michael put aside one of his greatest fears to be here for him, to learn about his prosthetic, to hold Alex’s hand through the appointment in case things went bad. 

“It’s what friends do,” Michael replies, sounding hoarse and half-sick himself. 

Alex takes that as the opportunity to get them out of there, because the new prosthetic won’t be ready to be picked up for a while and he doesn’t feel like lingering in a place that makes Michael so anxious. He waits until they’re in Michael’s car to say anything else. 

“You could have bailed on this, but you didn’t. Instead, you showed up for me and I … I really appreciate that,” he says, the sincerity clear in his words. When he’d gotten back to town and he and Michael had tumbled back into bed together, they’d connected like they always had, but these last few months have made that connection as strong as titanium, like diamond couldn’t cut through it.

He reaches over to rest his hand over Michael’s on the steering wheel. 

For a long moment, neither of them says anything. Alex’s gaze slides to Michael’s lips, then back to his eyes, and he thinks about how he’s always going to love him, but he’s starting to think that he’s managed to fall in love with Michael all over again and they’re _friends_ now. 

“Thank you,” he says, whisper quiet as Michael turns on the engine.

“What are friends for?”

* * *

Alex heads to the Wild Pony with his new prosthetic the next week to find Maria in the middle of preparations for her next theme night. He realizes that he’s been spending way too much time with Michael, because he doesn’t even remember her talking about this. Maybe he’s been a bad friend in avoiding her, or maybe he’s just been a really hyper-fixated friend to one other person. 

After all, he’s been making up for ten lost years of friendship in a matter of months, it takes focus. It’s easier to be with Michael, anyway, because things with Maria still have an edge of tension to them, no matter how much he wants to erase it.

“What’s this?” he asks Maria as he grabs himself a bottle of beer. 

“Singles night,” she says with a big smile. “The bi-annual attempt to get Roswell’s lonelies and those from the nearby towns some action. It’s only a shame I can’t put you in the mix,” Maria says as she starts papering the walls of the Pony with the advertisements, Alex following along with the tape once she’s handed it to him. “You’re so handsome, I’d probably make bank on people drinking to try and build up their courage to talk to you.”

He makes a confused face, because, “Why can’t I come to singles night? I’m just as available as anyone.”

Maria shoots him a dubious look. “You really think I want an angry Guerin at my doorstep pissed I put his boyfriend on the market? Honestly, I was just happy he stopped sniffing around, because any longer and I would’ve stopped being the better woman.”

Alex is starting to wonder if Maria’s been sampling her own wares. “Guerin’s _not_ my boyfriend, Maria.”

She looks like she’s ramping up to argue, but one look at Alex’s face has her pausing. She takes the tape from him and studies him for just a moment longer before she gives a ‘huh’ and raises her brows. “You really think that,” she says, amazed. “Okay. If he’s not your boyfriend, what is he?”

“We’re friends,” Alex insists, and he’s proud to call Michael his friend. For a while, he genuinely didn’t think they’d get there, but he feels like they can finally talk about things and as much as he knows there’s still some very big species gaps between them, he knows Michael better than he ever did before.

Maria hides her mouth with the papers, but Alex can see the amusement on her face.

“Friends,” she echoes. “I wish all my friends looked at me like that.” She turns back to hanging the posters. “Look, you and I both know that he’s dynamite in the sack,” she says, a topic that still makes Alex feel awkward, even if he’s said he’s okay to talk about it, “and I know it’s hard to think around him sometimes from experience, but I promise you Alex, that man is not just your friend. Didn’t you take him to lunch with your brothers?”

“If I turned up alone, we would’ve talked about Dad the whole time,” he defends.

“Uh huh, and Isobel’s art gallery opening?”

“Michael didn’t want to be alone and no one else was around that night.” He’s ready for whatever Maria has to come at him with, though he is starting to feel a strange tumbling sensation, like he’s beginning to see where she’s going with this.

She knows it too. “Max’s birthday party must have been because he was lonely there too, with all his friends,” she deadpans. “And I know I always take my friends and only my friends as my plus one to a medical check-up on my leg.” She finishes with the last poster before she turns back to Alex. “I’m not saying you’re not friends,” she clarifies. “I just think you should take a long, hard look at the fact that you happened to become boyfriends without either of you realizing, which is so like the both of you idiots that I’m hoping that stupidity isn’t an STD that Guerin gave me,” she scoffs.

She leaves him in the wake of the epiphany, which is for the best, because Alex needs a moment.

Every time he’d wanted to kiss Michael or touch him, he’d held back. Why? He’d wanted to get to know Michael as a friend, but it’s been months and he knows everything about him. He knows his favorite foods, his favorite drink, his stories from childhood, his ambitions, his hobbies, his goals, and Michael knows those things about Alex in return. 

They’ve restarted, but Alex missed the part where they’re not just friends. He’s not sure they were ever going to stay just friends, but it’s like both Alex and Michael hadn’t figured out that they’d vaulted over that hurdle easily. 

If he takes a clearer look at what they’ve been doing, he can see that they’ve definitely been doing things that friends do. He can’t rule out the movies or the lunches or the phone talks they have. It’s where things cross the line that get blurry -- how Michael pays for his tickets at the movies, when they sit together at lunch and pick food off each other’s plates, when those phone calls are at two in the morning and they literally just sit there and let there be silence on the line because that’s where it feels safe.

The way Michael faced his fears to go with Alex to the doctor, how Alex gave Michael a way to go home that he didn’t take.

They’re friends all right and they’re something so much more. 

With that stunning epiphany clearing up a lot of things for Alex, he heads for Michael’s trailer and he doesn’t bother to call him to warn him that he’s on his way. He just figured that they were being friends, the kind of thing anyone does, but Maria’s right. They might be friends, but what they’ve been doing these last few months goes past that.

He’d _told_ Michael that he didn’t even want to take his friends to his check-up. He should have known then; they both should have known then.

Without calling Michael’s name, he pounds on the trailer door, feeling panicked and a little overheated and he probably should have rehearsed this, but he hadn’t been thinking ahead. Michael answers, ducking his head out the trailer door wearing nothing but an old t-shirt that says UFO Emporium on it, which means that either he’d been a huge fan back in the day or he’d stolen it from Alex at some point. It’s one more piece of evidence about how stupid they’ve been.

“Hey,” Michael greets him, wiping off his hands since they’re filthy with grease and oil. “I didn’t know you were coming. What’s up?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that we’re dating?”

“What?” Michael’s eyes widen and he gives Alex a look of shock, like Alex has come here and hit him in the face instead of ask him the truth. “Because we’re not. We’re friends.”

Is it possible they’re both this useless when it comes to romance? Alex has been in the Air Force for ten years, so he knows what his excuse is, but is Michael seriously this unaware and clueless that he’d interpret what’s been happening as friendship?

Alex watches the epiphany hit Michael, because once Alex has pointed it out, Michael's more than smart enough to start putting the puzzle pieces together. “I asked you to come to Max’s birthday party.”

“Yeah, and Isobel’s opening,” Alex provides, pushing Michael inside with a hand tangled up in his t-shirt. “I wanted you at family lunch and my _doctor’s_ appointment.” He hadn’t made Michael his emergency contact, but he’d thought about it, and he distinctly remembers thinking, _that’s what friends do_. “You came, even though you worry about doctors dissecting you like they did back in the 40’s, you went for me, you were there for me, just like I was there for you every time you needed it.”

Wow, are they idiots.

“We’re dating,” says Michael, and he looks just as starstruck as Alex had felt when he’d figured it out. “We’re _dating_ and we aren’t even having sex,” he adds, as if that epiphany is the more egregious of the two. He’s fumbling to get his hands on Alex, both of them fisting up the fabric of his t-shirt as he looks like he’s holding him up, like he needs to pull him closer. “Hey,” he asks, breathlessly, even as he walks Alex to the bed. “Are you okay with us dating?”

“Guerin, shut up and be my boyfriend,” Alex says sharply, since he basically already is and it’s the happiest that Alex has ever been in his life.

He’s felt safe and secure knowing that he’s got a friend like Michael, but all this time, he should have also known that he had something more in him. He has been falling in love all over again, but he skipped the part where they talked about it, so maybe they’re still missing one crucial part of communication, but at least they’ve managed to get to know each other better.

“Make me,” Michael dares him. 

Alex pushes Michael to the bed and goes about the part of the relationship that’s always been easy. Since the very start, this is what they’ve excelled at, but now he knows that they’re even better when they try to be friends, and if the last few months are any indication, dating’s going to be a breeze too.

* * *

The next morning, Alex rouses to find Michael staring at him sleepily, letting his fingers slide over his chest. “You want to go to the Crashdown tonight?” he asks softly. “Forget this whole being friends thing, I’m gonna order a chocolate milkshake and two straws, for me and my boyfriend.”

Alex hides his smile in Michael’s chest, unable to help his delight. 

“I think it could be arranged.” He shifts so that his chin is resting on Guerin’s bare chest. “Hey,” he murmurs.

Michael gives a hum in reply, fingers absently playing with Alex’s hair. 

“I wanna be friends,” he says, “and I want to be your boyfriend, and I want to tell you that I love you and I know more about you than I ever have before, but I want to keep learning about you and…”

Alex would have kept going, but _someone_ has decided to shut him up with kisses, pinning him to the bed and tangling their limbs together. Honestly? Alex is learning all kinds of new things about them, and right now, he’s learned that he really wouldn’t mind if this is how they spend every morning from here on out.


End file.
